MPI Research Corner

An October 15th WSJ article, “When ‘Focused’ Funds Falter”, finds many prominent stock-picker funds among some of the worst performing this year. Of such funds, Fairholme Fund (-27.6% YTD through Oct 13), a subject of one of our previous blog posts, is one of the most notable – along with Bill Miller’s Legg Mason Opportunity [...]

Carmignac Patrimoine, the €24 billion flagship fund of French manager Carmignac Gestion, is back in the spotlight due to its good performance this summer. Despite the turbulence in European financial market, the fund rose 2.56% while its benchmark (50% MSCI AC World+50% Citi WGBI) lost -3.19% from June to August this year. Our cumulative return [...]

European Equity funds’ performance varies significantly across the category, with the best 5% of the funds in the universe outperforming the market (pegged to MSCI Europe) by approximately 15% over the trailing 12 months, and the worst 5% underperforming by approximately the same amount over the same time period. When one focuses on each success [...]

Michael Markov and Kushal Kshirsagar In our previous post below (referenced in a story from Jeff Sommer of The New York Times) we performed an analysis of the Laudus Rosenberg US Large Cap mutual fund (sub-advised by AXA Rosenberg) that indicated a significant change in the fund’s risk profile occurred as early as 2008. Our [...]

Michael Markov and Kushal Kshirsagar With AXA Rosenberg’s recent admission of a 2009 coding error in its portfolio risk management programs during a year in which the firm’s equity mutual funds lagged their benchmarks by a large margin, the investment community must reflect on how we monitor investments. Specifically, investors (and their advisers) must ask [...]